


It’s almost like you were sent here to save me

by electricbird



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-19 05:45:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14230590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricbird/pseuds/electricbird
Summary: Set sometime in the not so distant future. Charity tells Johnny a story when he wakes up in the middle of the night.





	It’s almost like you were sent here to save me

Vanessa has woken up to an empty bed for the first time in what feels like months. She tends to wake up before Charity on a morning, but she can tell from how dark the room still is that it’s not time to get up. She reaches out to the bedside table to pick up her phone and check the time. There’s still a good three hours left of valuable sleeping time so she considers just ignoring the other woman’s absence, but she quickly changes her mind, drops her phone back onto the table and drags herself out of bed. She’s about to head straight downstairs when she notices that the door to Johnny’s bedroom is open slightly and she can hear muffled voices coming from inside the room. 

“What about the superhero? Did she save the lady?” she hears a tiny voice whisper in the dark. Vanessa shuffles closer to the door to try and see into the room without drawing attention to herself. She rests her arm against the door frame and leans against it, still tired from the sleep she’s just woken up from. She can see the outline of her girlfriend sitting on the side of her son’s bed, legs curled up underneath her, one arm around his shoulders. When Charity had first started spending time at Tug Ghyll Johnny had taken to her instantly and it worried Vanessa more than she’d care to admit. For a while, even once they’d confirmed their relationship, there was a lingering feeling of doubt that she’d desperately tried to cast from her mind. Why would Charity, someone who was known for jumping from man to man seemingly without much regard for anyone’s feelings, want to spend time with her and her three-year-old son? Thoughts like this would fill her head at the most inconvenient times and she really hated herself for it. Charity had been nothing short of the perfect girlfriend this whole time, yet she’d still doubted her. She’s realised now that she had been projecting her own insecurities onto Charity: fear of being left, fear of giving herself up to someone only for them to change their mind. She’s had her fair share of that after all. Even now that they’re in a place where those insecurities had dissolved into nothingness it’s still almost unbelievable to Vanessa that they’re in this position at all. 

“Of course, she did! Wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise, would it?”

Part of Vanessa feels like she’s intruding on a moment between Charity and Johnny, so she considers dragging herself back to bed, but she can’t bring herself to. Every time she witnesses something like this between the two of them it hits her how much her life has changed. All of the times she’d pictured her future this certainly isn’t what she’d imagined, but it turns out that she wouldn’t want it any other way. Watching Charity’s relationship with Johnny develop so quickly had shocked her but now it fills her with pride. The other woman is so hateful towards herself regarding her parenting skills, yet her interactions with Johnny came naturally. Maybe it’s because he’s part of Vanessa, rather than herself. She doesn’t feel as though she’s already ruined him. 

“The superhero flew in and wrapped her cape around the woman’s shoulders to protect her from the bad men. She filled the room with a bright light that the men and the dragon were, er…allergic to, or something. But it saved the woman and meant she could be happy again. And well, I guess they lived happily ever after. That’s how these things are supposed to end, isn’t it?”

Vanessa felt her eyes fill with tears as she watched Johnny cuddle further into Charity’s side as the story ended. He’d probably enjoy anything Charity read to him, but Vanessa knows that story has more meaning than anyone else would understand and she’s sure Charity would roll her eyes at her if she knew she was getting emotional, but she doesn’t care. Her girlfriend prides herself on having a hard exterior and Vanessa loves beyond belief that she’s one of the only people who has ever been allowed to see this softer side of her. She watches as Johnny yawns and looks up at Charity.

“What was the superhero called?” he says, just loud enough for Vanessa to hear.

“Oh, er…how about Super Sunshine Girl?”

Johnny’s nightlight is just bright enough so Vanessa can see that Charity’s proud of that one. No matter how nice Charity is to her, she can’t stop teasing her about her earlier reluctance and particularly that first night in the cellar. Not that she wants her to stop. Charity wouldn’t be Charity if she didn’t think she was the funniest person alive. Johnny mumbles something in response but he’s already falling back to sleep. Vanessa quickly pushes herself off the doorframe and heads back to her bedroom, not wanting Charity to know she was watching. She slips back into bed and lies down, facing away from her girlfriend’s side of the bed. It’s another few minutes before Charity is back beside her, arm slipping around her waist and pulling her closer.

“Where did you go? Is Johnny okay?” Vanessa asks, mentally cursing the break in her voice that she hopes won’t give her emotions away. She should have pretended to be asleep. 

Charity mumbles an affirmative against her shoulder before pressing a kiss there. “But you already know that don’t you?”

“What do you-”

“It’s okay. I saw you checking up on me.”

Vanessa knows Charity’s joking; she felt her mouth turn up into a smirk, but she still feels the need to defend herself.

“I wasn’t checking up on you. I just like seeing you together,” she quickly replies. “And I don’t like waking up to an empty bed,” she adds as an afterthought.

Charity lifts her hand from where it had been resting on Vanessa’s hip and links it with one of Vanessa’s. She squeezes gently before replying, “I know that. I was joking. Anyway, how did you find the story?”

Vanessa wishes she could see Charity’s face, but she’s pressed so tightly up against her back that she can’t turn around. At first Charity didn’t like them lying face to face at all; she was far more comfortable speaking emotional truths to Vanessa if she didn’t actually have to look her in the eye. Sometimes this was still the case. As if she thinks Vanessa can’t hear the emotion in her voice or feel it in her touch. 

“I only caught the end, but I liked what I heard. How did you come up with it?” Vanessa replies, trying to keep her voice steady. 

“I’ve got one hell of an imagination me,” Charity laughs into Vanessa’s hair, “or maybe I’ve just got good inspiration.”

Vanessa lets the words hang in the air for a while before letting go of Charity’s hand and lifting her arm so that she can try to turn and face her. The taller woman relents quite quickly and moves back slightly to allow her girlfriend the room to move. Vanessa lifts her hand up to play with Charity’s hair and presses a brief kiss to her lips. 

“I really love you,” she whispers before dropping her hand and linking it with Charity’s once again.

“I know,” she replies simply, “now go back to sleep, yeah? I’ll see if I can think up another story for you in the morning. With more adult themes.” She wiggles her eyebrows comically before placing a kiss on Vanessa’s forehead. 

Vanessa starts to laugh but that’s quickly taken over by a yawn. She moves herself closer to Charity so that her head rests just underneath her chin.

“Where did the dragon fit into your story?” she mumbles into Charity’s neck.

“Babe, it was a superhero fairytale. I wasn’t really thinking of the logistics,” she chuckles, running her hand slowly up and down Vanessa’s arm in a way she’s learnt helps the smaller woman go to sleep. 

Once she thinks her girlfriend has succumbed to sleep again Charity closes her eyes and stills her hand so that it’s resting across Vanessa’s middle. She’s just about to drift off herself when she feels Vanessa lips moving against her neck. 

“You know you don’t have to worry about the bad men again.”

It’s a statement more than a question and there was a time when Charity would have laughed at how childlike and sure her girlfriend sounded, but now such a simple sentence makes her brain fuzzy and her heart beat faster so that the laughter doesn’t have time register. Even if she’s with Vanessa for the rest of her life she doesn’t think she’ll get used to this feeling of having somebody care about her without reason. 

“Or dragons. If you’re worried about them,” Vanessa says, when she doesn’t get a reply.

This time Charity does laugh. She laughs because she’s spent her entire life chasing a false dream with no real idea of what happiness looks like, only to find her actual dream in the most unexpected place. She’d never understood people’s obsession with fairytales and superheroes. Why teach kids to have unrealistic expectations of saviours? But now, when she’s lying here arms wrapped around Vanessa, she thinks maybe she was wrong about them. Maybe it is possible to be saved.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this floating around my head for weeks now but I really wanted to get something light out before next week's episodes. So here it is.
> 
> All mistakes are mine. Comments/kudos appreciated as usual :)


End file.
